The factory of the future is here, touching 24 million American jobs

A jet engine is seen as engineers work on the
carbon-fibre body of the Bloodhound SSC vehicle currently taking
shape at its design centre in Avonmouth on March 5, 2015 in
Bristol, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty
Images)Getty
Images

From the Industrial Revolution to the age of the assembly line,
and now in the emergence of today’s digital and 3D printing
technologies, the manufacturing industry has always been an
incubator for ingenuity.

Companies all over the world are grappling with how to integrate
digital capabilities into their operations. In manufacturing, we
are chiefly concerned with how to maximize productivity during a
time where hardware is merging with software. We see four main
drivers of productivity that are changing the way we design,
manufacture and service products.

1. Lean manufacturing

This is the effort to fold waste reduction principles into every
aspect of the manufacturing process and strive for continuous
improvements. This was a central tenet of the Toyota Production
System, where the goal was to maximize employee engagement and
customer value.

2. Advanced manufacturing

These techniques include the use of laser-guided cutting tools
robotics, cobots, exoskeleton technology and automation. Some of
these technologies are commonplace now in consumer applications.
While lasers are used in everything from light shows to hair
removal in salons, they are just now realizing their full
potential in industrialPeople stand behind a 3D
printed model for medical purposes at the stand of the US company
Stratasys during the international fairs FabCon 3.D and
Rapid.Tech in Erfurt, Germany, June 14, 2016. Exhibitors present
the latest products and applications in the fields of additive
manufacturing and 3D printing.(AP
Photo/Jens Meyer)

manufacturing, improving costs and creating a more ergonomic
workplace.

3. Additive manufacturing

Also known as 3D printing, additive technologies provide
precision and efficiency to a degree previously unheard of and
create parts that were impossible to produce. These advancements
will swing the pendulum back to U.S. domestic sourcing.

4. Digital maturity

The integration of hardware and software is changing the way
products are conceived, produced and installed — what the
industry calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We can now embed
sensors onto our machines, leverage software to gather data and
use those insights and analytics to ultimately drive greater
productivity. At GE, we call this the digital thread, because we
weave digital capabilities horizontally through our facilities
and vertically through our value chain, all enabled by Predix,
the industrial cloud-based platform.

These pillars of manufacturing are not theoretical. At a GE
Aviation facility in Auburn, Ala., there are 30 3D printers
manufacturing fuel nozzles for jet engines—the first 3D-printed
part ever approved by the FAA to fly in a commercial jet. At a GE
Transportation facility in Grove City, Penn., we’ve seen a 10 to
20 percent reduction in unplanned downtime. And in Florence,
Italy, equipping machines with sensors has identified optimum
times for maintenance with minimum disruption to production and
even add an entire production line without adding a new shift.

This vision is what we call the Brilliant Factory, and we are
realizing this vision in our factories around the world. A select
handful of our factories are already fitted with digital
capabilities and additive and advanced manufacturing technologies
and are realizing productivity gains as a result.

Manufacturing today is leaps and bounds from what the industry
looked like 50 or even 10 years ago. And this has implications
for the American economy and workers with ripple effects that
span the world. Advanced manufacturing industries account for 24
million jobs—13 percent of all American jobs—and each of those
jobs supports another 3.5 jobs throughout the supply chain. These
impacts are all the more significant when you consider that we
are in an age of protectionism worldwide, and companies like GE
that once relied heavily on globalization strategies are now
forced to localize quickly in order to maintain sustainable
growth.

There will continue to be manufacturing jobs available, but the
job descriptions will look different. In a highly interconnected
ecosystem, it is critical for industry to join forces with local
government and academia to build this pipeline of workers with
the skills they need to be competitive and work in tomorrow’s
factories.

Working with the Department of Education, GE will soon offer an
accel­er­ated Bach­elor of Sci­ence in Advanced Man­u­fac­turing
pro­gram in conjunction with Northeastern University in Boston.
The pro­gram, which is expected to launch this spring, is
believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. We also are a
founding member of Carnegie Mellon’s new additive manufacturing
research consortium. This is only the start of a journey. As an
industry, we need to do more. We see a future where factories are
fitted with valuable technologies across the supply chain,
managed by highly skilled workers earning good wages that are the
backbone of the American economy.

Philippe Cochet is GE’s Chief Productivity Officer. This
article originally appeared on
GE Reports.